New Member Intro from W'loo/CF area!

Hey Guys,

I just got done posting my first post over in the general area looking for someone to paint my '63 Chevy II Nova SS. Anyway, I thought I should take the time to do a member intro.

First off, I found this site through ImportEvolution. I am an old DSMer and knew him when they started out back in the day and through him and others that I met through them, I had a blast with my '90 TSi AWD!

Anyway, I am going to take the lazy man's way out and basically copy and paste (with a few modifications) my member intro that I posted 6mo or so ago at StevesNovaSite:

Just a bit of a warning; I tend to be long winded, so we will see how long this ends up being….

Background:I am a Mechanical Engineer and work with diesel engines for construction and forestry equipment. Besides cars and wrenching, I enjoy boating, camping, stand-up jetskiing, fishing, running, home improvement, etc, so of course I have about 4 other major projects going on at the same time as this one (one being a entire basement gut and remodel). I have had quite a bit of engine, fabrication, and machining background from growing up and throughout my college career having a part time job in some of the labs in school as a fabricator as well as being heavily involved in SAE during college. I hope to get back into some heavy wrenching and fab’ing during this project.

So ever since I can remember I have been a fan of the early Chevy II’s. Something about their boxy build, light body, and being a GM gives them my vote for the perfect hotrod. I also have been a huge fan of LS engines and came very close to putting one in an S10 of mine in college. Well, after working on my wife's uncle for the last couple years to get him to sell me his Chevy II, he finally broke down this spring, mostly because they are in the middle of building a new house and it has been sitting as is for the last 20-25 years!

The car:The car is a 2 owner (now 3) 1963 Chevy II SS. It has been in my wife's family for 30ish years and was owned by a friend of her family before that. It was torn down about 25 years ago and over the past 20 years, her uncle has done the following:
Floors replaced
All new front sheet metal
All body work complete (sitting in primer)
Suspension and brakes gone through (and replaced)
All new vehicle wiring from headlights to brake lights
All new interior: all seat covers, carpet, door skins, head liner, sun visors, everything!
Gauge cluster sent out and re-chromed and innards fixed/replaced
Radio reworked (AM)
250cu engine professionally upgraded (not original): 0.040” over, balanced, shaved head, 4 barrel carb/manifold, upgraded ignition, exhaust header, radiator pressure checked, etc.
Powerglide gone through, new torque converter
Bumpers re-chromed
All original trim saved (some need to be re-chromed or polished),
ALL documentation: Original paper work, original manuals, original (old) Haynes type manuals, a 1964 GM dealer shop manual, new/reprinted tear down manuals, magazines, and various other Nova related documents.

I know there is more that I am forgetting…. Overall, this thing is dead solid with perfect metal, with not a single bit of rust on her (way cleaner than my few year old GMC!) The owner is a hardcore union guy and he has only replaced stuff with original GM parts or American made parts.

The plan:
Stage 1: Get the thing painted and running! I plan on doing a bright blue. I haven’t totally narrowed it down, but kind of like a slightly lighter blue then what is on a WRX. I have seen a Toyota Tundra that was almost the right color for this one. Also, I just got done welding up some of the trim holes and completed a mini tub. It currently has the interior gutted and the wiring needs to be finished. The engine is all there so it shouldn’t take much to get it up and running. I also need to replace the windshield, but I am just going to buy that locally and have a shop install both.

Stage 2: 5.3L LS engine, 4L80E, Mustang II front end, Explorer 8.8 (shortened) rear end w/ disk brakes.I have the engine and transmission already. It is a 5.3L out of a 100k mile 04 Tahoe with a 4L60E and picked up the 4L80E. I havent decided if I am going to rewire my own harness or buy a new one.

Stage 4: Turbo build! My previous performance car experience has all been with turbocharged cars so I have always dreamed of a turbo v8 build. The plan here is to do a budget/junkyard set up with all custom plumbing and truck exhaust manifolds (flipped) for exhaust, very similar to how Yates EFI did it on his Turbo Chevy II. The plan for this car is to be a pretty bad street/strip car since we have a 1/4 mile track here in town.

Well that’s about it guys! Thanks for reading. Let me know if any of you are doing any LS swaps and are near by!

Hey Nick, Ryans got all the crap you will need for the turbo stuff. Let me know what you plan to do with the engine stuff. There are a couple guys on here that paint so you should be able to get something going.

Ed

hey nick. now we are back to old school times ....took me back about 12 years

we need some pictures. what does the car weigh?

nice to see you one here. i would get that thing running as simple as possible , drive it some, work out some bugs, see how you like it, plan from there. 5.3 is a great idea. but i would also probably just put it in NA and drive it for a year or two and than plan out the turbo build. the ls motors have some awesome torque, unlike our old dsm's. and with the turbo, the power comes easy.

Hey Ryan/Ed, How are things?

Anyway, Ryan, you hit the nail on the head regarding my plan for things. I plan on getting the car painted and then re-assembled and running again. I will probably wait a while until I get ALL the parts ready to go for the 5.3 swap. I am planning on doing a full mustang II style front end, either a TCI or Heidts, as well as all the other supporting mods (radiator, fuel pump, wiring harness, exhaust, etc). So who knows how long it will take to get all of that together. Then I plan on enjoying it as is until I get the itch for more power... thats when the FI will get installed. This will easily be a multi-year project. No need to rush into it all and never get to enjoy actually driving the thing!

Ed- as for the engine, I plan on keeping it mostly stock for now. I plan on running the truck intake that came with it with a cable TB. I will probably cam it, but beyond that, I don't have many plans prior to the turbo build.

Ryan- the car weighs about 2600lbs. Should stick pretty close to that even with the LS since the new front end gives about the same weight savings as the LS engine adds.

welcome. Sounds like a pretty serious build. +1 on pics

My buddy has a 64 Nova II that he runs down at CFR from time to time. Nasty little fucker I helped him build with a 434 SBC. Pretty sure he is in the 10's last I checked. Those things are a little squirrelly though.

looks pretty solid